Parenting in a Pandemic: Surviving the Perfect Storm of Social Injustice, Parenting, and a Pandemic in Librarianship
Event Type
Presentation
Start Date
23-7-2021 9:30 AM
End Date
23-7-2021 11:00 AM
Description
Over the last pandemic year, women have left the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Women raising children have been particularly impacted, as many struggle to balance working from home or front line jobs with childcare and virtual schooling. Women of color are most deeply affected as the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities and heightened the racial trauma and violence against Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).
Librarianship, a female dominated profession pretending to be white collar, is a service occupation modeled on capitalist white supremacist structures, and therefore institutions have expected staff to work without pause or interruption, despite outside pressures. In fact, women of color have been asked to do more during this stressful time, such as writing statements on social justice and race or finding solutions to long standing issues of inequity.
In this session, three academic librarians of color discuss the intersections of motherhood, womanhood, race, and the struggles of maintaining physical and mental health while raising a family and working full time. Panelists will discuss work environments and accommodations, social justice and racial trauma, and the unavoidable conversations with their colleagues and children about the issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia. This session will also explore the importance of community, finding joy, and strategies that allow the panelists to balance their work and personal responsibilities while also arguing for widespread adoption of policies that enable library workers to balance caregiving and work.
Parenting in a Pandemic: Surviving the Perfect Storm of Social Injustice, Parenting, and a Pandemic in Librarianship
Over the last pandemic year, women have left the workforce in unprecedented numbers. Women raising children have been particularly impacted, as many struggle to balance working from home or front line jobs with childcare and virtual schooling. Women of color are most deeply affected as the pandemic has exacerbated existing inequities and heightened the racial trauma and violence against Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC).
Librarianship, a female dominated profession pretending to be white collar, is a service occupation modeled on capitalist white supremacist structures, and therefore institutions have expected staff to work without pause or interruption, despite outside pressures. In fact, women of color have been asked to do more during this stressful time, such as writing statements on social justice and race or finding solutions to long standing issues of inequity.
In this session, three academic librarians of color discuss the intersections of motherhood, womanhood, race, and the struggles of maintaining physical and mental health while raising a family and working full time. Panelists will discuss work environments and accommodations, social justice and racial trauma, and the unavoidable conversations with their colleagues and children about the issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia. This session will also explore the importance of community, finding joy, and strategies that allow the panelists to balance their work and personal responsibilities while also arguing for widespread adoption of policies that enable library workers to balance caregiving and work.
